Indore: In the run-up to ensure safety during forthcoming Diwali festival, a joint team of police and district administration raided three shops in Ranipura and recovered crackers worth thousands of rupees on Wednesday morning. Police have registered three separate cases and arrested four persons under Explosives Act in the incident.

According to CSP BPS Parihar, the police team raided three shops including one of Parmanand Fireworks and another of Laxmi Traders in Ranipura area and recovered about 28 bags of crackers from the shops for selling crackers despite a ban imposed by district administration in the area.

Owners of Parmanand Fireworks, Parmanand and his sons Ashok Balchandani and Kishore and Laxmi Trader’s owner Rohit were arrested from the shops. The owners of Parmanand Fire Works were selling crackers in disguise of a Chunari shop in order evade detection, said police.

Parmanand informed police that after the ban on sale of crackers in Ranipura he had taken a temporary license for selling crackers near Regional Park. However, he confessed to bring crackers from his temporary shop to sell them in Ranipura. Ashok was earlier booked by Central Kotwali police for carrying crackers to Ranipura shop in 2015, said police.

Notably, about six months ago, eight people were killed in a major fire at a fireworks shop in Ranipura, triggering a massive crackdown on sale of crackers within city limits. Police and district administration had since then raided shops in the area for several times and also recovered huge quantity of illegal crackers from them.